


In which, with nearly Eight Billion human beings, more then one has Determination.

by OrangePress



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Determination (Undertale), Undertale Saves and Resets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 03:53:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19243303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrangePress/pseuds/OrangePress
Summary: So, like, I was reading a ton of fanfics and I realized that practically all the Undertale fanfics were always about OCs becoming romanced, romancing, OP or the monsters all stuck on their own and yeah, I know there are ones not like that (Feel free to recommend some) but I was just like, lets focus on something different, and so I decided, what if, with nearly Eight Billion people in this world that another person has Determination. Well, obviously, Frisk/Chara have the most, I mean, hello, the whole Sans and Undying the Undying fights so what if they were like Flowey strong enough to remember but not stronger then them or Flowey. Why didn't anyone else do that? Well, what if you need say, you're soul activated, which is why there aren't billions of people running around with magic powers. I figured you could do this through a variety of means, intense meditation, someone with an active helping you, or being jump started like say a giant magic barrier. I figured that Frisk had the barrier/world (haven't decided) destroyed and our main corrector just had the good/bad luck of being soulified. So that's that.





	In which, with nearly Eight Billion human beings, more then one has Determination.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [esama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/esama/gifts).



> So this story has been fun to write less so to contemplate but still fun, and I just want everyone to know that yeah it's pretty rough. A few notes: I thought well when you kill Flowey and Reset, he almost seems to not remember, (I could be wrong) so what would happen then and also my take on what would happen when you die but with determination but you can't reset, and my take on Wingdings based off what I know of the Fandom.

It wasn’t a very large amount of time before the volcano exploded. I was one of the reporters who volunteered to record it live for the news. I had arrived two days early and with authority over more cameras then I had owned in my entire life and more helicopters then had ever seen.

Most of the animals had already left the area and the ones who hadn’t weren’t seen.

Most of the people had already evacuated so it was just me and the two other camera men and every other lunch, the two helicopter guys. Oh, and the doc who was around in case of emergencies.

The volcano was predicted to explode three days ago. I had been drilled on what to do during the tremors that kept coming but so far nothing. The smoke kept pouring out and the tremors kept going.

It was on the fourth day that I met the kid. She was a cutie pie that didn’t talk. Her hair was a light brownish red and the doc had bandaged her eyes over because she was allergic to the smoke. We were waiting for one of the other helicopters to come pick her up but that would arrive tomorrow.

I hummed as I handed the kid a sandwich and the world shuttered like a video that was going bad. People were glitching and all I could hear was that awful static sound.

Then I was in the helicopter the cameraman was running a fly by of the volcano. I stared blankly at it and then checked my watch.

It was the first day. It was on the third day, which wasn’t right, we met the kid again. I ran her through the emergency drills again and HE knew them effortlessly.

It was on the fifth day that the world glitched again. The kid was unaffected by the weirdness of the world and then it was the first day again.

The kid was female again and this time I drove straight to her. It was on the second day. When the cameraman Dave spotted her and pulled over next to us, the kid looks startled. She began muttering. I only caught the last bit. “-wonder what caused it this time-”

I turned to look at her and to listen more. “-try again-”

Then the world glitched.

I was more panicked than ever and spent two days drinking hot chocolate before on the third day heading to pick up the kid.

The kid smiled and then proceeded to relearn everything. They were male this time and smiling up when we ‘found’ them this time. They still didn’t talk but I was determined to learn more about him... er her… THEM. They seemed like a good kid and I did mention that they were cute. I posted them on Facebook asking if anyone knew them but so far no one knew.

Then the world glitched.

I was sick and tired of coffee so I had decaf tea. The kid was picked up right on schedule and then I ran them through drills while also reading up about the volcano.

Then the world glitched.

I had more decaf but this time I did a preview of the area with the kid immediately. The kid wasn’t done and I didn’t go back.

The world glitched on the third day.

How did I get out of these loops? Maybe I had to do it right? So I had to pick up the kid.

I tried skipping training and taking the kid immediately to the nearest city. Then I flew back. The job was finished two weeks later.

Seven months passed and then the world glitched.

I woke up and had a panic attack. I don’t know what I did wrong but I knew that the longest one was when the kid was out of the volcano area. I picked them up on the third day and personally took them to the police.

The police found the parents but they were labeled missing. It was awkward for a second or two and then the world glitched.

I repeated the same events as yesterday and sent them to the police with one of the camera men. The kid was placed in the foster system and I headed home.

Two days later the world glitched.

I finally managed to get the bare bones of what I needed to do. Pick up the kid and head them off with Barley, that’s the youngest cameraman. After that, I needed to exchange emails with them and that usually got me two to three months.

In the meantime, I studied. Math, physics, theories and hypotheses trying to understand how this was happening along with why.

Then it seemed, the glitching had stopped. A year passed and I had stopped exchanging letters with the kid after the first month. Two years passed and I started dating someone, Sarah.

She was amazing and beautiful. She had this truly awful laugh like a dying hyena but I loved hearing her do it. Sarah could do these voices like a Muppet character. I kept reading but it became more of a hobby. Another year has passed and I had almost written the glitches off as a hallucination and then I was too busy fretting to worry about them.

Sarah was pregnant. We were getting married and then we were going to buy a house and raise our kids. I wanted to name him Vasco after my father or Net after my grandfather. Sarah wanted to name them Susan like from the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe.

Another year passed and Sarah was expecting again, three months this time. Susan was adorable. Both me and Sarah wanted a big family and we were decorating the front entryway. I want to put a fish tank in but Sarah wants to put a painting. She can’t paint anymore. Permanent tremors but it’s enough. We’re enough

Another year has passed and I was in the doctor's office. I didn’t understand. I couldn’t comprehend. I was infertile. Had been since childhood.

I threw that letter in the trash and went to see Susan. She was in the living room playing with blocks while Sarah just ‘rested’ her eyes from a long day at work. I laid down next to Susan and tried to think. Tried to think of anything.

That night was the first night, I picked up a book about complex math in almost three years. It was in french and I was reading it with a personal dictionary open. It was full of terms that you would have trouble finding online.

Sarah came in looking radiant in her comfy sponge bob pajamas and an overly large T-shirt of mine. I felt like there was a frog in my throat. Sarah flounced onto the bed next to me and then wrapped her arms around me while nuzzling my neck. I kept reading for a few more hours.

Weeks passed and then months. Sarah noticed after the first three and at my seemingly sudden withdrawal from her became cold. We shared separate rooms by the end of her pregnancy and then after Net was born, we went back to being with each other. Sarah just assumed I had too much on my mind or had a minor midlife crisis. I never told her otherwise.

Net was two and Susan was five when I had just gotten them all dressed up for daycare because both of us had to work today. Then the world glitched.

I felt numb during the next few hundred glitches. With me being such a downer, we didn’t head out for extra flying out to get a parametric shot of the volcano and we didn’t pick up the kid.

It seemed like a couple years worth of glitches before I was feeling better. Telling the others that a girlfriend of mine had died in a car crash had gotten me more than enough emotional therapy and so I decided to move forward.

On a panoramic shot, led by the cheerful me, we picked up the kid. The kid fell out of the helicopter.

We picked the kid up and put them in the middle of the helicopter. I hummed a song that had been stuck in my head for the past three loops. The kid was male this time around and I passed them along to social security. Everyone on the crew had given me outstanding references about me. Mainly how I was such a great person and so easy to get along with.

I studied some more and posted some of my completely random theories. I also picked up another language. It was three years later and in Paris to talk to some rioters when I ran into Sarah a year later.

She was radiant and three months pregnant. We talked. She was going to name the kid Susan and the father was my brother.

I had honestly forgotten about him. I walked Sarah to her hotel and then got punched by my brother. Apparently not contacting him for nearly three years because I had forgotten wasn’t an acceptable excuse.

Then he attempted to hug. I wasn’t having any of that and jumped out the window. I broke a leg and the police were called because I screamed at breaking a leg. It really really hurts.

I was in the middle of surgery when the world glitched. Let me tell you that was one heck of a trip from anesthesia straight to waking up in a helicopter.

I panicked and attempted to get out. I succeeded in the form of falling out of the helicopter.

I spent two days in agonizing pain with a stick jabbed through my stomach and spine before the world glitched.

I remained still in the helicopter and then continued my work. We picked up the kid and then I dropped them off at social security. The kid grabbed onto my sleeve and hugged on refusing to let go. I decided why not and rolled with it. I adopted the kid and used my resume to get a way better job and then I proceeded to win the largest lottery out there.

I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before. Social security didn’t know the kids name and the kid refused to speak so it was up to me to name them.

I stared at them before deciding to name them after my last dog from when I had married Sarah. “Risk.”

The social worker frowned at me and the kid turned to stare at me. I swallowed my suddenly dry throat. “I mean… Frisk.”

Yeah, that sounded good. The social worker smiled at me with her bright lipstick and wrote something  down the forms. I smiled and took the kid, well, Frisk now home.

I bought a new house in a place I’d never even set foot before. Frisk walked around looking at the empty floors curiously. I smiled awkwardly and set to work finding the kitchen.

The house was pretty sandstone on the outside with two large pillars supporting the roof for the outside porch. Five feet in and you had a giant dark door with glass around it.

The inside had a main ballroom with two staircases that sprawled along the road to the top. Past that there was the bathroom right in front with a giant pool, I mean bathtub and the left wing and right wing.

The right wing had fifteen empty rooms and the kitchen and another bathroom. The left wing had fifteen empty rooms and a dining room and another bathroom.

There was no furniture unless you counted the giant chandelier in the ballroom.

Frisk was running around and exploring. I set out to the nearest goodwill and gawked at everything in it. I forgot I lived in the rich neighborhood now.

Two months passed. Frisk was content to explore the neighborhood while I filled up the house and waited to hear back from the agencies I had applied to. I filled the place with books and aquariums and mainly just worked on furniture I had gotten cheap and decorated and painted so it matched in.

I also bought my book collections and everywhere was stuffed with bookshelves stuffed with books.

I probably had too many. There were books everywhere along with beanbags and other comfortable chairs. Then Frisk brought home a friend.

He was dressed like a cowboy and had a missing front tooth and the yellowest hair I had ever seen. He was wearing a hat and had toy pistols strapped around him. He also tracked in mud.

I smiled and made a note to find out how to clean fancy carpets from Afghanistan and made some more sandwiches for lunch.

Frisk just smiled and let the boy babble. It seemed to be  a tall tale about how the boy fell into a mountain and fought his way to the top trying to survive all of the monsters that had attacked him but instead he had died and had been eaten by a goat that wanted to take over the world and then the kid beat him up from the inside. Frisk doesn’t talk but nods along with the new kid.

I place down more food and sit down on one of the sofas. The kid complains about being trapped for a really long time and then moves on to more mundane things. Frisk nods along and pulls the kid off to explore the house.

I text Helen, an acquaintance I had made while there and ask about cleaning the carpets. She compliments my patience and forwards it to the PTA group she’s in. Helen says I should join when Frisk starts school.

I might. I get to work on the carpet. Frisk had fallen asleep on one of the couches and the cowboy kid had climbed on top of a chair and was looking at some of my simpler books in Spanish. I tapped him on the shoulder and he jumped off landing in a crouch.

I honestly don’t know if that’s normal or not. I cough awkwardly. “I can show you where the children books are in spanish.”

Cowboy kid stands up slowly before puffing out his chest. “That’s only fair since you scared me.”

I nodded seriously before coughing some more and heading off. Cowboy follows along babbling. “You have a really pretty house. It’s got lots and lots of books. It has even more than Toriel’s house but hers is so much nicer.”

I guess Toriel might be his aunt or something. “How so?”

The kid stared at the seventh room in the right wing. All of the walls were lined with bookshelves and shoved full of them. There were carpets laid around that I had bought on a shopping trip with Helen and Lindsey and all the other PTA members.

The kid ran his hands along them and then yanked one out. “Hers has plants and smells nice.”

He stands on his tiptoes and reaches for a book just out of his reach. I pick him up and he grabs it. “Can you make cinnamon butterscotch pie?”

I have never heard of that in my life. “I can try.”

I set him down and cough some. I thought I’d gotten rid of all the dust. I might need to hire a cleaning crew if I was going to keep working. The kid dropped a book in my lap. “Can you read this too me and Frisk?”

I nodded quietly and cough before opening it up. “The Seven Colors. By Marcus Savanski.”

Frisk flopped onto the ground next to me and Cowboy pulled themselves into my lap. “A long time ago, there lived seven types of people.”

I coughed some more and stared at the picture. A dreamy watercolor of a red heart was next to a weird frog and a white one. It was pretty if you like abstract things. “Each type of person was made out of one of the seven colors.”

I flipped the page after coughing. The dust must really be getting to me. A bright red watercolor heart filled the page. It was about the size of a fist. “Determination.”

Cowboy gigled. “That’s you Frisk!”

What a weird kid. Where did Frisk even find him? Frisk nodded determinedly. I coughed and kept reading. “Bravery.”

There was a bright orange heart. This was a weird story. I flipped the page and the next two were the full page hearts one was yellow and the other was purple. “Justice.”

Cowboy cheered shooting both of his arms in the air. “That’s me Frisk.”

Frisk nodded and I kept going. “Perseverance.”

I coughed and flipped the page. Two blue hearts stared at me. “Patience. Integrity.”

I flipped the next page. It was a parametric water color of some place with a tiled floor and I think it was supposed to be gold columns at the end was a large door. Floating above it was a green dot. This picture took both pages. “And the most important of all... “

I flipped the page and it was about half way through the book. It was just another watercolor heart but this time it was green. “Kindness.”

The other page had black watercolor words that looked the paint had ran. “These seven types of people had two choices.”   
The next two pages were completely black with two boxes of reddish orange. I read the two words out loud. “Mercy. Fight.”

Frisk stared at the words. Cowboy stared also before he started sniffling. I coughed a little and set the book aside and patted him on the back. The world started to glitch.

I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to lose this. I reached out and hugged Frisk. Maybe I could bring them with me?

The world stopped and I could hear myself coughing. I let go of Frisk and Cowboy and coughed into my sleeve. It felt like I couldn’t breathe. Actually, I don’t think I could.

I wiped my mouth and coughed some more. I glanced down at my mouth and stared.

On my white sleeve was red spots. I texted Helen asking if she knew someone who could watch Frisk and his friend at the moment. Helen said she’d be over and I told her to help herself to anything in the fridge as I didn’t know how long I’d be gone or if she wanted to take them somewhere and I kept cash in the flower vase if she needed anything.

“Hey, Frisk. Helen is going to come watch you two. If you need anything call me. I’ll be back later.”

I smiled and ruffled Cowboy’s hair. He giggled and grabbed the next book and began reading out loud. “Hola, Luna-”

I headed to the hospital. I waited around and filed an appointment for two hours and waited in the waiting room some more coughing every once in a while. Then I headed in.

A smiling nurse with a clipboard approached. “Mr. Hamilton?”

I stood up and smiled at her. I then coughed before answering. “Hi, I’ve had a cough for the past few weeks and I coughed up some blood.”

The nurse seemed to stare judgingly. I was ushered into a room and a mask was placed around my face.

About ten minutes later, another lady walked in. Apparently I had tuberculosis. Who knew?

I called Helen. “Hey, Helen, I know it’s really really sudden but could you take care of Frisk and get his friend's home for a while.”

“Of course, I can. What’s wrong?”

“I’m really sick and need to stay at the hospital for a while. I’ll find someone to take care of them tomorrow but could you please take care of them today?”

Helen was shuffling something. “Get in the car we’re going to my house. Of course, dear. Are you alright? What’s wrong?”

“Um, I’ve got tuberculosis.”

“Tuberculosis? How?”

I looked over the lab that I had just gotten. “Apparently from a fish.”

“Excuse me for one moment.” A hand covered the phone and then there was muffled laughing. “Alright. Don’t worry, I can watch them over for as long as you need. You just focus on getting better.”

I smiled into the phone. “Thank you, Helen. You are a literal life saver.”

“Uh-huh. Don’t you forget it.”

The doctors gave me some type of medicine and the weeks passed bit by bit. Helen took the kids to visit after the second week and talked with the doctor and returned pale and worried. Frisk signed from the other side of the Skype call and I laughed and answered her. Cowboy would show up and babble a minute a mile. It was the fifth week when the Doctors corrected my misconception that I would get out of here. I wasn’t. I was dying.

It was the seventh week when Frisk and Cowboy learned. Helen broke and told them. I smiled gently at them. “Kids, I’m not certain what will happen when I die.”

I took a deep breath. “But I want you to take care of each other. Stay together and don’t ever look back.”

I hoped this time I could rest instead of the world glitching. “I love you guys but you want to remember the past is in the past. There’s nothing we can do. Keep moving forward and never stop.”

The world started glitching and I wanted to scream. Cowboy hugged Frisk.

Another week passed at the hospital, sometimes it was hard to stay awake, and then it was all black. I was in a void and there were two boxes in front of me. I tried to tap one but I couldn’t.

One read reset. The other read load. I shrugged and started walking.

Time past of no up or down. There was no sound or light just black nothingness that seemed to cling to me. I knew there was more. My legs didn’t tire and my feet didn’t step on anything. I could see myself but I had no shadow. I hummed and sang to myself but no sound was made. It almost felt like the sounds were almost there but not quite. I don’t know how long I spent until I stopped and sat down and began experimenting making sounds seeing if I could hear anything.

It could have been a matter of hours or a matter of days. It could have been years or decades. I don’t know how long it had been but I learned. They were audible but they weren’t right.

I kept going and in what felt like a matter of weeks I heard one fully that was correct.

I could see it for a moment sort of there but not. The sound was a clock. I dismissed it and the screen I only mentally saw faded.

I made the sound again and it was wavy lines. I made the clock then the waves. They were the same sound but also different. Hours or maybe days passed and I slowly learned all of the signs. Tears and hands. Snowflakes and mailboxes. The mailboxes were only sort of sounds though.

It could have simply been a few days or maybe months or even a few years but eventually I heard something reply. The voice sounded curious and hopeful and I copied as best as I could. Eventually it was the voice making the sounds one by one and then me doing the best to copy. Once I had all of the individual sounds copied and could differentiate between the four different mailboxes. We started combining sounds.

The words we made became more and more complicated and then more. I couldn’t make the most complicated cross noise instead I got a box but we kept going. I made my first sentence. 🕘☟□⬥ ♋❒♏ ⍓□◆. (How are you)

The voice seemed amused and corrected me. He added a black medium diamond instead of a 2B25 and added a ✍. (?)

I replied back ✏. (!)

The voice replied back ✍. (?)

I repeated the sentence waiting to be corrected but instead got something else. 🕘☞♓■♏📪 ♋■♎ ⍓□◆✍(Fine, and you?)

The voice had decided it was time to learn how to converse. I don’t know how long I spent walking never tiring towards the voice that never seemed to change but slowly the words made sense bit by bit. It must have been years by the time I was fluent in this new language and me and Gaster, as he introduced himself, talked.

We talked about everything and anything and as the days or weeks or years passed we realized how little we knew. I didn’t remember my name and Gaster didn’t remember what was before the void. We remembered facts and science. Sometimes we would spend what felt like days or weeks shouting math problems to each other. ☝☎💣📂⌧💣📄✆📭☎☼♈📄✆. (G(M1xM2)/(R^2))

Others we would play a game only vaguely recalled from Gaster’s side that  went like this. We would speak the full elements name and the elements abbreviated symbol was what we took. It was ☞●◆□❒♓■♏ 🕆❒♋■♓◆❍ ☠♓⧫❒□♑♏■. (Fluorine Uranium Nitrogen)

We talked of biology and vacuoles and I shared what I knew of time travel and I looked like myself. The void as we had came to call it had wrapped itself around my back and down the shoulders almost like a heavy blanket. I asked Gaster about it and he said his torso was completely covered. We talked about it for a while before forgetting what we had been discussing. Later when I looked down and saw that it had wrapped my chest entirely and some of my neck all the way down to my knees, I brought it back up. We came to the conclusion that the longer we were here the 'stickier' the void became. I didn't know if I should be worried or if this was normal.

**Author's Note:**

> Any reviews on how to improve this would be appreciated.


End file.
